He reached up to wipe his eyes. This caused more shuffling from everyone except Pax, who didn’t flinch. “My nameis Ellis Rogers.”
“But what areyou?”
“I’m a man—a human. What are you?”
This brought a round of whispers from everyone except the one in the bowler hat, whose eyes never strayed. “Human,” Pax replied, absently discarding the word and moving on to more important matters. “But you’re different—are you a Darwin?”
“I don’t know what that is.” Ellis didn’t like the way he was feeling, sweaty, dizzy, and a tad nauseous.
Pax glanced back at the others, and Ellis noticed a look of embarrassment. “It’s a legend. Rumors about natural-borns living in the wilds. Nutty things about people who never joined Hollow World, who stayed on the surface and survived. You’re not one…are you?”
“No.”
“You’re an old pattern, then?”
Ellis shook his head. “Don’t know what that is either.”
Pax looked surprised and took three steps forward.
“Pax!” the other one snapped.
Pax stopped, looking irritated. “You say you didn’t kill that person next to you. Can you tell us what did happen?”
“I heard two people—arguing, I guess—then one screamed. I was on the other side of the wall at the time. I ran around and saw one on top of the other.” Ellis pointed at the body without actually looking at it, trying to avoid seeing the mess again while at the same time wondering if the dampness in the seat of his pants was his sleeping buddy’s blood or his own urine. He was far from certain which he was rooting for. “Then the one on top got up and…”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know exactly. Just sort of disappeared, I guess.”
“Disappeared?”
Ellis shrugged. “Went through a hole of light. That sounds craz—”
“The killer used a portal.”
Ellis had no idea what that meant, but the confidence in Pax’s words left little doubt, so he nodded.
“You’re not actually listening to it, are you?” the one with the tattoo said with an even mixture of disgust and disbelief.
“It’s the truth,” Pax replied, and even Ellis wondered at the level of confidence. After the story he had just told, Ellis wasn’t sure he’d believe himself.
“It’s a Darwin—you’ve heard the stories. You can’t believe anything they say. They’re cannibals.”
Pax gave the other an appalled look. “Ellis Rogers is telling the truth.”
“Are you absolutelysure?”
Pax sent off another look that could only be interpreted as seriously?Which caused the other to scowl in reply.
“Are you a cop?” Ellis asked. “I mean, a police officer?” The pair of eyes beneath the bowler hat peered at him intently, as if Ellis were a book with very fine print. “A law-enforcement official? A servant of the government? A peacekeeper?”
The last title registered a smile, and Pax nodded. “I suppose—yes. My name is Pax. I’m actually an arbitrator. This is Cha, a physician who would really like to get a closer look at the person next to you. Would that be okay?”
“Sure.”
Cha hesitated. “Tell it to move away.”
“I’m pretty certain Ellis Rogers can hear you, Cha. You don’t need me to translate.”
“It’s okay.” Ellis pushed to his feet, still feeling woozy.
“Are you injured, Ellis Rogers?” Pax asked.
“I have a respiratory illness. The exertion of running aggravated it. I think I passed out.”
“Are you all right now?”
“Dizzy.”
Ellis moved away from the body and leaned on the brick wall. It felt cool and reassuring against his back. Cha moved up, knelt beside the dead body, and opened a satchel. Several members of the crowd spoke in whispers among themselves.
“Where are you from, Ellis Rogers?” Pax asked, moving nearer to him and drawing a concerned glance from Cha.
That bowler hat made Ellis think of Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange, but Pax was nothing like him—too cute. If anything, Pax was more like Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp, except for the missing greasepaint mustache.
He wondered how to answer. Could he say he was from another village? Was there another village? He knew so little it was impossible to make even a bumbling attempt at a lie, and he felt deceiving a police officer wasn’t the best way to start a new life, no matter how short-lived it might be. “I came from the city of Detroit.” He paused for effect, then added in a soft tone, “From the year 2014.”
Ellis had no idea what to expect. They should pack him off to a psychiatric ward, but times had changed. Anything might be possible now. Ellis guessed the plausible reactions ranged from him being worshiped like a god to a dismissive nod, as everyone was likely time traveling nowadays. It would explain the disparity in clothes, and that portal could have been Time Machine 2.0. If computers could go from room-sized vacuum-tubed monsters to tablets in eighty years, time travel had to be a whole lot slicker than a bunch of plastic milk crates and a car seat.
Pax just stared at him a moment, looking puzzled. Slowly he watched as Pax’s eyes widened. “You’re from the past… wayin the past.”
Cha made a dismissive huffing sound.
“Where is this time machine?” Pax asked.
“I left it up in the woods. Five—maybe six miles north along the river, not sure. I hiked a long way. Isn’t much to see, really.”
“Oh sure,” Cha said. “Bet it’s even invisible.”
“Cha, please.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Cha replied.
Pax scowled.
“Time travel isn’t common then?”
“No,” Pax replied.
“It’s impossible,” Cha said.
Can I really be the only one? Why haven’t there been others?“So I’m guessing you don’t believe me.”
Pax looked at him with intense eyes. “I believe you.” The statement was flat, no underlying tone, no sarcasm, and spoken so quickly and loudly that it left no room for argument. Pax continued to stare deeply into his eyes, no glances away or awkward shifts in stance.
If that’s a lie, it’s a damn good one, Ellis thought.
“The PICA has been cut out.” Cha looked up from the body, first to Pax and then accusingly at Ellis.
“Ellis Rogers didn’t do it,” Pax said firmly. “Ellis Rogers is telling the truth. Look—do you see any blood? Whoever committed the murder would be drenched.”
Ellis wasn’t certain of a lot of things. He didn’t know if the people around him were really human or the result of some android manufacturing plant. He didn’t know what year he was in or if technology was ahead of or behind his time. He had no idea what had happened to the city or the world. And the envelope had yet to be opened on whether he’d made a mistake or not, but he was certain of one thing. He was starting to like Pax.
So far everyone he’d seen had the same features, perfect copies of one another, but they weren’t the same. Ellis didn’t care much for the way Cha shared the same suspicious expression as the others in the crowd, but Pax was different—more gentleness around the eyes, more concern in the line of the jaw and the angle of the mouth, which appeared on the verge of a smile. Hair would have helped. Ellis had never known too many bald people, and the lack of eyebrows was disturbing. Their absence made Ellis uneasy, like he was in a cancer ward, but Pax impressed him as a person he might trust.
“Is there a Port-a-Call?” Pax asked Cha. “There would be an ID stamp on that, and we could trace the jumps.”
“I don’t see anything. Not even a tattoo—completely clean. Not much of an individualist. There’s nothing personal here at all.”
Pax turned back to Ellis. “Do you know who the victim was?”
Ellis shook his head, and he wished he hadn’t. The world swam. “I just told you I’m from—”
“Yes, I know—I just thought you might have heard a name or something.”